


Lies

by entanglednow



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Lies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-07 19:18:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor has rarely understood him, but he has always loved him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lies

 

Thor has learned many lessons since his trip to Earth. Some of them strange and nonsensical, that he suspects he will never have to remember. Some of them unexpectedly sharp, lessons that add complicated layers where none existed before. His brother has taught him new things as well. He has learned that a man can be your enemy, and your friend, and your lover without even a pause between. But Loki has always made things complicated. His refusal to ever be one thing, his refusal to make things _easy_ , has been his greatest strength, and the cause of much frustration. Thor has rarely understood him, but he has always loved him.

He's currently contemplating just such a conflict, while watching his brother curiously pick through his things. There's nothing vindictive in the movement, no subtle purpose that Thor can fathom. He knows that Loki does little without purpose, but for now it seems to be just movement, a refusal to be still. The smile he wears is neither subtle nor kind, but it is not so very different from the smile he remembers. The sheets still smell like them both, but Thor is not satisfied - Loki prowling his room like a naked cat and seeming like he cares not at all, it is unkind.

"Come here," Thor says, trying his best to sound impatient and not demanding.

But Loki snorts as if Thor has amused him, and picks even more slowly through the trinkets he's collected from his time on Earth.

" _Loki_."

"It is almost no fun to tease you, you make it so easy."

"Then cease and come here. You did not come to my room to be watched."

"No, I came to be fucked, which we have done." He tilts enough to watch Thor through his hair, eyes bright with amusement, though there are still shining cracks within, dark, fractured lines. Thor chooses to ignore them, for peace.

"Loki."

His brother acquiesces with a laugh, drifts on silent feet back to the bed. He pulls the sheet aside, straddles Thor's lap with a possessive sort of arrogance, the tight grip of his knees is deliciously threatening. The bite of his fingers more so. There are teeth in his smile, they seem to say Thor should be careful what he wishes for.

"I like your hair longer," Thor says. He reaches up and catches a long, dark strand of it, tugs on it. "I do not know if I've told you. It suits you."

"Yours makes you look like a woman," Loki decides, arching a dark brow and lifting a long length of Thor's blond hair, letting it run between his fingers before falling free. "It doesn't suit you at all." He laughs, when Thor grunts offense, catches Loki's arms and rolls them, hands pressing Loki's narrow wrists down into the sheets, and his brother surprises him by not fighting the movement at all.

"I will show you who is a woman." It is a heady feeling, to have Loki's arms stretched over his head, spine curved, long legs gripping either side of his waist. Though if his brother cares at all about being pinned, he doesn't show it.

"I could _make_ you a woman, if you truly desire," Loki says slowly, that same shifting smile stretching on his face. "You have only to ask. I believe your hair would suit you then, and if you ever cared to brush it, it would cascade very prettily over your breasts."

Loki's still laughing when Thor kisses him, and he manages to keep laughing, soft and wilful under Thor's mouth. Loki still snaps, and threatens - silver tongue only briefly halted when Thor pushes into him. His threats are no less inventive during, and much more cruel. But they're half-bitten into the heat of his skin, laughter almost as sharp as his teeth. He always makes it feel like a battle to be won, and that is why Thor has always loved him best.

They end up a tangle, sheet covering the back of Thor's thigh, and little else. He lets his head rest on Loki's stomach, and Loki's fingers comb through the strands of his hair, arranging it in a way that makes sense perhaps only to him. Thor could sleep like this, leave himself defenseless to the whims of his unpredictable brother. It wouldn't be the first time. His brother's company, his closeness, has always left him content.

"They say it's all a lie," Thor says, into the quiet of the room, and he doesn't know what forced him to voice the words, to let them free.

Loki's fingers stop their absent resettling of his hair, they fall to stillness.

"What do they say?" Loki asks. There's no emotion in the question. It sounds like it comes from far away.

Thor frowns, he moves a hand, curving it round the muscle of Loki's bare thigh and pulling it in closer, laying his cheek against it.

"They say that you do not love me, that you cannot love me, that your heart is ice. They say you are manipulating me, that you are using my feelings for you. They say that you mean to destroy me."

The fingers are gone. Loki's not touching him at all any more.

"And what do you believe?" he asks.

The question isn't so flat this time. It has glinting edges. Loki offended is almost as dangerous as Loki cornered. But there are already too many tangled threads holding them together. There are too many lies in their history, too many to breathe around. Thor has never demanded he stop, but he has always known - always believed - that the important things were true.

He tightens his hand on Loki's thigh, turns his head until he can breathe into the chill of his skin.

"If it is a lie, I do not want to know," he says at last.

 


End file.
